Web video blog for Oct. 14

After watching a cooking video at NYTimes.com, I decided to pursue a more news-based post for this particular blog.

I visited the Detroit Free Press' Web site, Freep.com, and watched a video from its "Michigan's Band of Brothers" series.

What struck me most about this particular video, "Remembering a Michigan soldier" (presumably that's what it's called — the site formatting makes it hard to read the whole title), was that many sources, and not once the reporter, told the story:



It's particularly powerful because these videographers had interviewed this Marine, Pfc. Tarryl Hill, on the job, before his death, and used that footage paired with footage from his funeral. Instead of focusing on a memorial video for Hill, the videographers chose to focus on the reactions of people in the audience to the video, which was particularly powerful. Relatives laugh and cry in response to the words they're hearing.

I would recommend just brushing up some of the text at the end of the story so that the viewer can read all of it. Additionally, one might stretch a headline across the top of the video so that it's easier to read. The gunshot near the beginning of the video I thought might have been a bit too loud in comparison with the surrounding audio.

If this were a print story, the reporter likely would have focused on some key thing someone said in a speech at the funeral, and then interview family members and friends in attendance, provide background on Hill and then end it. Video enables the reporter to let the viewer see and hear the person before and after death, as opposed to recounting what this person was like through sources other than the soldier. The video allows us to see what the people in attendance at the funeral saw, as opposed to giving us a summary that's bound by length restrictions.